Shubman Gill, Shankar to replace Rahul, Pandya

Bengaluru, January 13: With Hardik Pandya and KL Rahul are set to return from Australia, the selection committee have named Shubman Gill and Vijay Shankar as their replacements in the squad. Shankar will join the squad before the second ODI against Australia at Adelaide on January 15 while Gill will travel to New Zealand for the ODI and T20I series.

Shankar, the all-rounder from Tamil Nadu, too will be part of the squad that travels to New Zealand to play five ODIs and two T20Is, said a release from the BCCI.

1. Shubman Gill

This is the maiden India call for Gill, who has an outstanding Ranji Trophy season for Punjab. The 19-year-old Gill, a star player in India's U-19 World Cup winning team last year, has made 790 runs from 10 innings at 98.75, including two hundreds and five fifties. The break-up is: 56, 54, 62, 268, 10, 148, 24, 69, 91, 8. Recently, Gill was part of the India A squad that toured New Zealand. He was also named player of the tournament of the ICC U-19 World Cup and was picked up by Kolkata Knight Riders for Rs 1.8 crore. Dinesh Karthik, his captain at the Knight Riders, had said: "That boy is special. I don't want to hype it up and put extra pressure on him. I can see a lot of years of India Blues in him," he had said after Gill made a match-winning fifty against Chennai Super Kings in the IPL 2018.

2. Vijay Shankar

Unlike Gill, Shankar has already made his India debut in the Nidahas Trophy and has played 5 T20Is for India thus far. He is a like-for-like replacement for Pandya and the 27-year-old Tamil Nadu man has been good touch recently. He made 188 runs at an average of 94 from three matches in India 'A's recent tour to New Zealand and he was also the highest run-getter.

3. Vinod Rai's take on inquiry

The CoA had issued a show-cause notice to Pandya and Rahul for their sexist remarks on Koffee with Karan show and they have week's time to respond. CoA chief Rai feels that the inquiry process should be expedited and BCCI CEO Rahul Johri should reach out to players for their version and the entire procedure can be closed soon after the second ODI at Adelaide. In short, Rai does not want the controversy to linger on and work as a distraction for Team India.

4. Edulji's view of inquiry

Diana Edulji, the CoA member is of the opinion that the inquiry should not be done in haste to avoid making it look like a cover-up job. She is also not in favour of CEO Johri being a part of the inquiry process because of the sexual harassment allegations levelled against him recently. She wants the CoA to conduct the inquiry along with the BCCI office-bearers.